STARLING. 



on wooded hillsides, as well as alder thickets along rivers 

 and in swamps, but never the forests. 



The Alder Flycatcher has no more of a song than the 

 Chebec, in other words, nothing beyond three syllables 

 generally described as " Wee-zee-up " or two syllables like 

 qui-deee or, as Bradford Torrey has it "Quay-queer." The 

 tones are very high, without definite pitch, and decidedly 

 as unmusical as the Phoebe's "tuneless performance," 

 however, it is possible to express both pitch and rhythm on 

 the musical staff, and here they are: 



3 Times 8va 

 / wv\ 



\'IVt3Cf / WV\ 



f\ /\ v\V /VW /WW 



Qut-deee Wee-zee-up Quay-queer 



Qul-deez Wee-zee-up 



The quality of tone is something between the Phoebe's 

 and that of the two-note call of a young Goldfinch, with 

 the accent on the final queer. Certainly this is not espe- 

 cially musical. 



Family Sturnidce. 

 starling The Starling is a European bird nearly 



to the Crow and Blackbirds, and is 

 AH the year essentially arboreal and gregarious. It was 

 successfully introduced into this country by 

 Mr. Eugene Schieffelin in 1890. Numbers which were 

 liberated in Central Park, New York, have spread all over 

 tho country in the vicinity and as far east as Boston. It 

 is more or less common in the Connecticut valley MS far 

 north as Springfield, up the Hudson valley as far as New- 

 burgh, through New Jersey from Englewood and So. 

 Orange to Princeton, and on Long Island and Staten Island. 

 The coloring of the bird is rather odd; black throughout 

 with magenta and green iridescence, the upper feathers 

 spotted, i.e. tipped with light buff; lower parts, wings, and 

 tail dark brownish gray, the bill yellow. In winter the 

 brown-gray and buffy coloring has increased and obsrun-.I 

 the iridescent black; plumage of the female similar but less 

 brilliant. Nest in hollow trees or sheltered comers of old 



275 



